The Two-Way

12:32 pm

Mon December 3, 2012

Group Of Internet Trolls Claims Thousands Of Tumblr Blogs Infected By Worm

A notorious group of Internet trolls says it has unleashed a worm that has littered Tumblr blogs with inflammatory and racist posts.

According to the technology site The Verge, GNNA, whose full name we can't print in a family blog, says the worm has infected more than 8,000 accounts. The worm spread when users were logged into Tumblr and clicked on a viral — in more ways than one — post that asked for all Tumblr users to "drink bleach and die."

"While we can't verify that number now, the compromise is visible on several personal blogs, as well as those for Reuters, The Verge, and others," The Verge reports.

Tumblr said that if you've clicked on a post that begins "Dearest 'Tumblr' users," you should "log out of all browsers that may be using Tumblr immediately."

"The group discovered a way to to self-propagate posts on the massive social blogging network. Just a few hours after going live early Monday morning, the hack had infected more than 6,000 blogs (including, briefly, ours), according to a GNAA member identifying himself as "Leon Kaiser," the group's "head of public relations."

"'The guy who found the bug messaged me about six hours ago, and we went live just under three hours ago,' Kaiser said. 'We started with one post on a brand new Tumblr blog, I sent the link to a few people, and it went from there.

"'Well, it looks like we've reached nearly 6,000 unique users affected. ... Never expected it to get this big.'"